The invention relates to a vehicle construction comprising a body with a base, a roof, two longitudinal walls joining the base and the roof and at least four wheels connected to the base, which base, roof and longitudinal walls comprise sandwich panels which are jointed to one another at their longitudinal edges.
A vehicle construction of this type, constructed as a rail vehicle, is disclosed in FR-A 2 704 507. The body of this known vehicle is positioned on a fairly high base construction, which base construction consists of a sheet of sandwich material which has longitudinal reinforcements on its underside, in the region between the two bogies.
The known vehicle construction has the disadvantage that the floor thereof is at a high level, which depends on the height of the longitudinal reinforcements beneath the baseplate. A construction of this type is not suitable for vehicles which are intended for short distance transport, for example local transport. For transport of this type it is important to facilitate entry and alighting as far as possible, tow which end as low as possible a floor is preferably used.
A relatively low, flat loading deck is already used in vehicles of conventional construction, that is to say vehicles with a normal chassis of steel girders with a super-structure of lattice construction mounted thereon. However, said vehicles lack the advantage which the construction using sandwich panels provides, such as a low mass and modular construction, which makes possible variations in the design and size of the vehicles. Moreover, the fuel consumption is high as a consequence of the relatively heavy construction.